Tuna Salad with a French twist--Pan Bagnat

After a week in France, I can still mostly just write and read French, but I think I also learned to make a great picnic sandwich.

I was first introduced to this sandwich in a book I was reading some years back.  I don't recall the book anymore, but I remember the family in the book who made their weekend treks to the beach and packed a delicious sounding picnic lunch.  The whole family participated in making the sandwich.  Mom mixed up the tuna and vegetables, Dad went to the Boulangerie to buy the bread, and of course the two daughters had their parts to play too.  In fact I think this is the reason I have always remembered this picnic sandwich.  The young girls took turns sitting on the sandwich as they drove to the beach so it would be ready to eat when they arrived. 

Here's a description from Wikipedia:

The Pan-bagnat (Occitan: pan banhat for bathed/wet bread) is a sandwich that is a specialty of the region of Nice, France. The sandwich is composed of pain de campagne, whole wheat bread formed in a circle, although white bread is also sometimes used, around the classic Salade Niçoise, a salad composed mainly of raw vegetables, hard boiled eggs, anchovies and/or tuna, and olive oil (never mayonnaise). Sometimes balsamic vinegar, ground pepper, and salt will also be added.

My French Pan Bagnat

The first time we made this using canned Tuna packed in Olive Oil.  We chopped up onion, green olives and capers; we mixed this all together adding salt and pepper, and some fresh lemon juice.  We put the tuna on both halves of the bread, with the tomatoes and lettuce in the middle.  We wrapped that up in foil, and put some heavy stuff on it:

Foil Wrapped Pan Bagnat

Add some weight so the inside bread gets "wet". 

 The sandwich was delicious, and I might add, travels very well!

We enjoyed this so much we decided to pack another picnic making the sandwich again.  This time we ended up with a different bread from the Boulangerie (with limited French, you learn to point and make do). 

Same Sandwich with a few changes.  Still delicious!

This was our favorite bread for the sandwich, so if you spot this in a Boulangerie, buy it and make Pan Bagnat!

 This was such an easy sandwich to make.  It went together quickly, it tasted great, and it can fit into small spaces--like underneath a person!  We cut this into triangles so we each ate one fourth of the sandwich. 


It was a nice French lunch, and then we continued our hike and came across this:

Oh look Honey, a bathroom right next to where people are walking...

I have made Pan Bagnat since we returned from our vacation, and I must say that the bread is really a key ingredient.  I have mixed up the filling with different vegetables, sometimes adding small diced carrots, thinly sliced cucumber, scallion, garlic, etc. but the most important part of the success of this is to find a crusty loaf with a soft inside.  I haven't given up on this because it really is that good.

Anyone have bread suggestions for me?